The world may be shutting down but there’s still time for music in Italy, even if the concert halls are closed.Across Italy, from the Tuscan town of Siena to the southern city of Naples, Italians are refusing to be silenced. Overnight, neighbors started singing together, leaning out through open windows or standing on their balconies — a collective act of civic solidarity and coronavirus defiance.In Siena they started singing a traditional Tuscan folk song, Il Canto della Verbena (And While Siena Sleeps), one of the town’s most cherished melodies and sung since the Middle Ages. The back-and-forth choruses echoed down the narrow, deserted street of the medieval town. “Long live Siena, the most beautiful of cities.”A video posted on social media of the singing went viral, with many on Twitter saluting the singing as a “beautiful” act of humanity.“People of my hometown Siena sing a popular song from their houses along an empty street to warm their hearts during the Italian COVID-19 lockdown,” wrote one person on Twitter.A resident uses pot lids to play cymbals as she takes part in a music flash mob called “Look out from the window, Rome mine!” The event sought to liven up the city’s silence during the coronavirus lockdown, March 13, 2020.Others said that despite being separated in their homes, Italians were showing they remained together. Siena’s singing prompted other towns to follow. In Naples, quarantined Italians in apartment blocks in the Casoria district of the city joined in singing in defiance of the deadly disease sweeping the country.  In one video they can be heard singing the local soccer chant: “People like us will never give up; people like us will never give up; people like us; people like us; people like us will never give up. Come on Italy! Come on Naples! Forever!”Naples escaped the first waves of coronavirus cases, documenting just 95 infections so far, but as with the rest of Italy, Neapolitans are locked down on a “stay-at-home” rule imposed by the Italian government to try to retard the spread of COVID-19. As of Thursday, Siena had 29 confirmed cases, according to the country’s Civil Protection Agency.Italy’s death toll rose above 1,260 Friday, with more than 17,660 confirmed cases. The epicenters were still mainly in the north of the country, in the regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. Siena had 41 confirmed cases, and Naples had 140.The singing came soon after the country’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio praised Italians for observing the national lockdown, which tightly restricts people’s movements.All shops, aside from food stores and pharmacies, and all schools are shuttered.He told broadcasters: “Our grandfathers were drafted to go to war; we’re being asked to stay at home. … If a doctor and a nurse can work for 24 hours nonstop, we can give up leaving our own home. The huge majority of citizens are respecting the rules.”A man plays guitar as part of a flashmob organized to raise morale during Italy’s coronavirus crisis in Turin, Italy, March 13, 2020.Italian officials say the effectiveness of the national quarantine will depend on two crucial factors — the willingness of Italians to comply with the rules and how long the lockdown can be sustained in the face of mounting economic and social costs. Privately, they acknowledge there are risks of civil unrest, if the shutdown has to be prolonged and doesn’t start showing benefits within the next two weeks in terms of a decline in the rate of infections.Italy has followed the lockdown approach China adopted to quell the spread of COVID-19 in Hubei province, the origin of the virus. Other European countries have started to ramp up to varying degrees their efforts to slow the disease but have not been as radical as Italy, Europe’s coronavirus epicenter, and have opted for more modest restrictions.A man plays accordion as he looks out of an apartment window as part of a flashmob organized to raise morale during Italy’s coronavirus crisis in Rome, March 13, 2020.Like Italy, several countries, including France, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Ireland, have closed schools and universities and banned large gatherings. They are poised to follow Italy’s lockdown example, their officials say, if the rise in cases in their countries can’t be slowed, fearing otherwise huge spikes in infections will overwhelm their hospitals and lead to more deaths.The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that Europe had now become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.Officials elsewhere in Europe have taken note that in a matter of two weeks, the explosion of cases in Lombardy, one of the wealthiest regions in Italy, exhausted the hospitals there. Lombardy boasts one of the most efficient and well-funded health care systems not just in Italy, but also in Europe. This week, the region’s health care coordinators admitted to reporters that Lombardy’s hospitals were “one step from collapse.”Other officials have been warning that doctors and nurses are close to burnout after working around the clock for weeks.Britain has remained an outlier and has held back from introducing the more restrictive measures being seen on mainland Europe.The number of confirmed cases in the the country reached 590 Thursday — up by 134 in 24 hours. But the British government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, has admitted publicly the actual number of people infected at the moment could be between 5,000 and 10,000.Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference to give the government’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, at Downing Street in London, March 12, 2020.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday confirmed the government was entering the second phase of its response to COVID-19 — moving from trying to contain the virus to retarding its spread. But Johnson has declined so far to close schools and universities or ban large gatherings.Opposition parties and some from Johnson’s own ruling Conservative Party have questioned why Britain is out of line with many other countries where schools have been closed and cities placed on lockdown. They also have called for independent scientists to be able to scrutinize the data that have led Downing Street to proceed more slowly.Gordon Brown, a former prime minister, said Friday that “fears are still growing for our safety; for all the brilliance of Britain’s medics, the government still seems behind the curve.”Vallance told Britain’s Sky News that Downing Street was moving more slowly than other governments because Britain was “a little bit behind” where the coronavirus outbreak is in other European states. He said Britain had managed to slow the rate of infection because of early action in tracing and isolating those infected.“What we don’t want to do is to get into knee-jerk reactions where you have to start doing measures at the wrong pace because something’s happened,” Vallance added.
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Spain will be in a state of emergency for the next 15 days to better combat the coronavirus, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday, in a dramatic increase to the policy response that will allow authorities to confine people and ration goods.The state of emergency, which Sanchez said will formally be decided by a cabinet meeting on Saturday, will give the government power to take wide ranging measures including temporarily occupying factories or any other premises except private homes.”The government of Spain will protect all its citizens and will guarantee the right life conditions to slow the pandemic with as little inconvenience as possible,” Sanchez said. He did not spell out what specific measures the government will take.A tourist records with her mobile phone the landmark Sagrada Familia basilica, which stopped receiving visitors due to the coronavirus outbreak in Barcelona, Spain, March 13, 2020.Schools have already shut down across the country, with many cinemas, theaters or playgrounds also closing and trials suspended in several regions as normal life came to a halt in the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy.Spain has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe after Italy. The current Spanish tally stands at 4,209, up by about 1,000 cases from Thursday and seven times as much as on Sunday. About 120 people have died.Sanchez said the number of cases in Spain could jump to over 10,000 as early as next week but added he was confident the country would defeat the virus, urging all citizens to do their part.”Heroism is also washing your hands and staying home,” he said, referring to health advice to slow the propagation of the coronavirus.Catalonia, Spain’s second-richest region, ordered on Friday the closure of shopping centers with the exception of those selling food or essential goods, as well as gyms and nightclubs, a senior official said.The Madrid region — Spain’s wealthiest — has also decided to close restaurants, bars and shops from Saturday, media including Efe news agency said, with only supermarkets and pharmacies allowed to remain open. Authorities could not yet confirm this.
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France is shutting schools nationwide, among other coronavirus measures. But municipal elections taking place over the next two Sundays are going forward. Analyst predict a so-called ‘green wave’ of ecologically minded candidates may surge in the polls – powered by a raft of alarming environmental developments. Lisa Bryant reports from the working-class town of Saint-Denis, outside Paris.
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Since the Turkish Health Ministry recently confirmed the country’s first coronavirus case, people have been flocking to pharmacies, grocery stores, and other outlets to prepare for a potential nationwide pandemic. VOA’s Umut Colak in Istanbul, in collaboration with Murat Karabulut in Ankara, filed this report on the shortage of supplies like face masks and sanitizers, and the sudden price hikes on such items. Bezhan Hamdard narrates.
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European Union interior ministers on Friday were trying to coordinate their response to the novel coronavirus as cases spread throughout the 27-nation bloc and countries took individual measures to slow the disease down.
    
With Italy at the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak, some of its neighbors, like Austria and Slovenia, have begun taking steps to restrict traffic at their borders, raising questions about the movement of food and medical equipment. But other nations, like the Czech Republic and Poland, are taking action too.
    
“The problem is on different levels in different countries,” Swedish Interior Minister Mikael Damberg told reporters in Brussels, but he said “we hope that all countries that take new measures also inform other European countries.”
    
“The transportation system must work when it comes to food and to health care materials and these kinds of things that are important to all European countries so that we don’t make problems for each other handling the crisis,” Damberg said.
    
The coronavirus is now present in all 27 EU countries. More than 22,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed across Europe, and more than 1,000 people have died on the continent.
    
Individual EU member countries are responsible for health and public safety, and the bloc’s institutions have a very limited role to play in halting the spread of the disease.
    
Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who is chairing the talks because his country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said “this crisis shows that as a European Union we need to have models to act in a more coordinated way.”
    
“If we are acting in one way it would be much better for all of us,” he said.
   
 “A lot of people are of course concerned now, and the responsibility for us is to limit contagion and protect capacity,” said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson. “All measures should be coordinated, operational, proportionate and effective.”
    
Many EU meetings have been canceled due to the virus, with these talks being among the rare exceptions. Two ministerial sessions, between health and interior ministers, were held via video-conference this week.
    
The ministers were also expected to discuss the 30-day travel ban imposed by President Donald Trump on Europeans leaving the 26-nation ID check-free zone, known as the Schengen Area, to the United States. EU leaders have lamented that the move was taken without consultation involving a disease that knows no borders.
    
The Schengen area includes many EU members but also other countries including Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
    
The measures announced by Trump don’t apply to the United Kingdom, Ireland or any of the Balkan countries. He has branded COVID-19 a “foreign virus” and claimed that European travelers “seeded” infection clusters in the United States.
    
 “I hope Mr Trump understands that you can’t make a deal with a virus,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
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The Trump administration will be suspending travel from 26 European countries for 30 days, beginning Friday at midnight, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Vice President Mike Pence said Americans returning from Europe would Why was Britain left out of the ban?U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech Wednesday that he excluded Britain from his travel restrictions because it was doing a “good job” in fighting the coronavirus.However, he blamed some European Union countries and said they failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots.“As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe,” Trump said.Who is exempted under the ban?It does not apply to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, (generally) immediate family members of U.S. citizens, people invited to the U.S. for specific purposes, air and sea crew members, foreign diplomats, and those who do not pose a significant risk and should be let in for reasons of public interest.How effective will this ban be?Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, told VOA the country is in the community spread stage of the pandemic. Pouring resources into executing a travel ban right now “is misguided at best,” she said.“Even if we were at more of a containment stage, we live in a globalized world. It’s unfeasible for us to execute real travel bans because we have U.S. citizens who are constantly traveling all over the globe. And we legally have to let them back into the United States, no matter where they’ve been,” Pierce said.In a statement, though, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf said, “The actions President Trump is taking to deny entry to foreign nationals who have been in affected areas will keep Americans safe and save American lives.”
“While these new travel restrictions will be disruptive to some travelers, this decisive action is needed to protect the American public from further exposure to the potentially deadly coronavirus,” Wolf said.What happened in the outbreak’s early days?In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the United States imposed restrictions on other places. Noncitizens coming from China and Iran were not allowed to enter the country. U.S. citizens who had been in China could enter the country, but their flights were directed to specific U.S. airports and they were required to undergo enhanced screening. They were subject to quarantine if they showed signs of the virus.
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The Trump administration will be suspending travel from 26 European countries for 30 days, beginning Friday at midnight, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Vice President Mike Pence said Americans returning from Europe would Why was Britain left out of the ban?U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech Wednesday that he excluded Britain from his travel restrictions because it was doing a “good job” in fighting the coronavirus.However, he blamed some European Union countries and said they failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots.“As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe,” Trump said.Who is exempted under the ban?It does not apply to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, (generally) immediate family members of U.S. citizens, people invited to the U.S. for specific purposes, air and sea crew members, foreign diplomats, and those who do not pose a significant risk and should be let in for reasons of public interest.How effective will this ban be?Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, told VOA the country is in the community spread stage of the pandemic. Pouring resources into executing a travel ban right now “is misguided at best,” she said.“Even if we were at more of a containment stage, we live in a globalized world. It’s unfeasible for us to execute real travel bans because we have U.S. citizens who are constantly traveling all over the globe. And we legally have to let them back into the United States, no matter where they’ve been,” Pierce said.In a statement, though, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf said, “The actions President Trump is taking to deny entry to foreign nationals who have been in affected areas will keep Americans safe and save American lives.”
“While these new travel restrictions will be disruptive to some travelers, this decisive action is needed to protect the American public from further exposure to the potentially deadly coronavirus,” Wolf said.What happened in the outbreak’s early days?In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the United States imposed restrictions on other places. Noncitizens coming from China and Iran were not allowed to enter the country. U.S. citizens who had been in China could enter the country, but their flights were directed to specific U.S. airports and they were required to undergo enhanced screening. They were subject to quarantine if they showed signs of the virus.
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Speculation about the political future of Russian President Vladimir Putin became somewhat clearer this week.  He threw his weight behind proposals to amend Russia’s current constitutional cap on presidential term limits  — a move that would allow him to stay in power beyond the end of his current term in 2024. Charles Maynes reports.
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French airlines expect to lose business as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend travel from Europe to the United States for a month because of the coronavirus outbreak. Transatlantic flights are among the most profitable parts of  Air France-KLM’s business.Air France alone serves more than 20 American cities and operates more than 200 flights to the United States per week. The alliance between Air France-KLM, Delta and Virgin Atlantic produces combined annual revenue of $13 billion. With the U.S. decision, hope vanishes for tourism officials who wanted to see a reverse in the travel decline from Asia and Europe to North America.About 100,000 French nationals were set to travel to the U.S. in March and April.Shocking developmentValerie Boned, the secretary-general of Enterprises de Voyage, an advocacy group representing travel agencies in France, told VOA the U.S. move was a disaster.She said professionals were quite shocked by the announcement because the United States is one of the main destinations for French people. According to Boned, 1.8 million French citizens travel to the U.S. each year, for leisure or business. It is the No. 1 long-haul destination for the French. Others fear the travel ban for EU citizens to the United States will affect employment, as the travel sector has been fragile for weeks because of the outbreak. René-Marc Chikli, president of SETO, the French union for tour-operating companies, said he was expecting America’s decision to implement a travel ban on EU citizens, because the virus has no boundaries. But it’s still an economic shock. Tour operators represent 3,000 companies and 35,000 employees in France. He indicated that more 10% of the companies might not survive if the crisis lasts for months. Tourism industry leaders will be meeting Friday with French government officials to try to find ways to get relief to the travel sector.
 
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“Lemon trees, like Italians, seem to be happiest when they are touching one another,” wrote British novelist D.H. Lawrence in his travelogue, “Sea and Sardinia.” The lemon trees are still touching, but now the unspoken rule for people is non toccare (no touching).This month, many Italians started pulling off mesh and plastic covers from their lemon trees, no longer worried that they need insulation from frost — a collective unveiling marking the end of winter and traditionally preluding warm sun and glorious Mediterranean summer days ahead.But other traditions have been banished by the coronavirus, and the Italian government’s desperate bid to counter its spread, from no touching to no hugging and absolutely no demonstrative light cheek kissing, otherwise known as il bacetto.Another unusual sight is to see Italians taking their place orderly in line.  To enter food stores Italians are standing the required one meter apart, and all this standing in line is without the usual feints and excuses to jump ahead.’Stay at home’When Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced Monday his restrictive “stay-at-home” measures to halt the transmission of the virus, an Italian neighbor confided to me her doubts that it would work as “unfortunately the Italians are very unruly and indisciplined.”That so far has turned out not to be the case.A caregiver (R) keeps her distance from an elderly woman whom she looks after, on the balcony of the woman’s home in Rome, March 11, 2020.When the virus first started to appear last month, many Italians in the center and south of the country deemed the threat far enough away to cause them little alarm. Many looked at what was unfolding in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto as though they were observing a distant planet through a telescope.But as the numbers mounted and the death rate surged, the attitude altered, the mood darkened and the panic shopping started, in spurts at first, depending on the latest case numbers announced each evening by the top officials of the country’s Civil Protection Agency. Their nightly announcement is now the most watched program on Italian television.Prior to Prime Minister Conte locking down the country, many of the young dismissed the threat as overblown, and continued with carefree lives, going out at night and heading to bars and clubs. Their parents and elders, though, were already taking note, and starting to maintain social distance by reducing their sorties from their homes, except to shop and for the daily run of going to and from work.But now, even the young are cautious about venturing out — and not only because of the government decree, summed up by Conte as “I stay at home.””People are staying in because there’s so much fear,” says Michela Bianchi, a university student studying journalism in the Lazio town of Viterbo, north of Rome. “An atmosphere has been created that goes beyond the fear of contagion. We hope everything will pass quickly, but in the meantime it is right to observe all the provisions they have given us,” she added.A woman wearing a protective mask stands in front of a notice recommending to keep the social distance of 1 meter between people, at the Leonardo da Vinci international airport, in Rome, March 12, 2020.Past lessonsNo one wants to catch Coronavirus or to be accused of spreading it — inadvertently or otherwise. The lessons of the past are being remembered — lessons about contagion taught them in the books that were required reading at school.One of the most cited now is Alessandro Manzoni’s 1840 novel “The Betrothed” (“I Promessi Sposi”), which is set against the backdrop of an awful plague that struck the villages around Milan and then advanced into the city itself in 1630. Manzoni outlines the mistakes that allowed the pestilence to spread, from the outlying villages of the contadini [peasants] to the Milanese.He notes that when news of the sickness reached the city “anyone might suppose that there would be a general stir of disquiet, a clamor for precautions of some kind [whatever their real value] to be taken … But one of the few points about which all the memoirs of the time agree is that there was nothing of the kind … Anyone who mentioned the danger of the pestilence, whether in the streets, the shops or in private houses — anyone who even mentioned the word ‘plague’ — was greeted with incredulous mockery or angry contempt.”Fatally, the city’s governor allowed public festivities and mass gatherings to continue, a mistake Conte has not made, who on Wednesday tightened his measures, ordering the shuttering of all shops, except for food stores and pharmacists, and the closure of bars and restaurants.A waiter stands by empty tables outside a restaurant at St Mark’s Square, which is usually full of tourists, after Italy’s government adopted a decree with new emergency measures to contain the coronavirus, in Venice, Italy, March 5, 2020.Al frescoSo, Italy’s streets are unpeopled — a contradiction of how life is lived in Italy, which, aside from the worst of the winter months, is pursued outside, on terraces with neighbors, and in the piazzas with friends. Now if you dawdle on the streets of Rome or Milan, police demand to see your travel papers and hurry you on, telling you to move quickly as though lingering will invite a viral bombardment.Conte has tired to keep up the spirits of Italians, while warning them results of the unprecedented lock-down of the country will take at least two weeks to start bearing fruit.Midweek, he told them in a nation-wide address: “At this moment the whole world is looking at us: they certainly look at us for the numbers of the infection, they see a country that is in difficulty but they also appreciate us because we are showing great rigor, great resistance and I have a deep conviction, I would like to share it, not only will they look at us again and admire us, they will take us as a positive example of a country that, thanks to its sense of community, has managed to win its battle against this pandemic.”Other countries have followed the Italian model — Denmark shut down this week, Ireland closed all schools and universities Thursday. Most European countries have, or are, moving quickly from a strategy focused on containment and trying to keep the virus from their borders, to one of delay and mitigation in a bid to “flatten the curve” of confirmed cases.  Passengers sit at distance from each others on a tram in Milan, Italy, March 12, 2020.Wired worldThey hope this approach will avoid large spikes that risk overwhelming hard-pressed hospitals so that doctors have to make shocking life-and-death decisions about who gets critical-care treatment and who doesn’t. Italian doctors say containment is a thing of the past — “the tsunami is coming,” one tells me, “and it will hit America, too, where there’s already evidence of people being infected who never traveled or had contact with anyone who did. Get ready, get prepared,” he says.The upending of the rhythms of Italian life at least are mellowed by the internet.“I’m working from home,” a friend said on her Facebook page. “In the end, thanks to that progress that often scares us, you can do everything or almost everything with a click — video calls, conference calls, meetings, shopping, news, pastimes,” mother-of-two Patrizia Miano wrote.She added: “But the quarantine has just started and I already feel suffocated. We are not used to the limitations. Only now do we understand the value of saying, ‘I am going to the sea,’ or ‘I am go skiing,’ or I am going for a walk.’ I want to smell the grass. I hope this experience really serves to make us human again, to stop believing that we are omnipotent and that nothing can touch us.” 
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German authorities are formally placing parts of the far-right Alternative for Germany party under surveillance after classifying it as extremist, the country’s domestic intelligence agency said Thursday.Thomas Haldenwang, head of the BfV intelligence agency, said that after more than a year of examination his office has concluded that a radical faction within Alternative for Germany, known as “The Wing,” meets the definition of a “right-wing extremist movement.”“This is a warning to all enemies of democracy,” said Haldenwang, noting that it was his agency’s duty to prevent growing far-right extremism from overthrowing the country’s democratic order the way the Nazis did in the 1930s.Alternative for Germany immediately criticized the move, which allows authorities to use covert methods to observe The Wing and its estimated 7,000 supporters. They make up about 20% of the party’s overall membership but hold significant sway over its direction, according to former party members including its one-time leader Frauke Petry.The Wing is led by AfD’s regional chiefs in the eastern states of Thuringia and Brandenburg, Bjoern Hoecke and Andreas Kalbitz.Haldenwang described Hoecke and Kalbitz as “right-wing extremists,” noting Hoecke’s historical revisionism, his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rhetoric and his close ties to other known extremists outside of the party. Hoecke has described Berlin’s memorial to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust a “monument of shame” and called for a “180-degree turn” in the way Germany remembers its Nazi past.“We mustn’t just keep an eye on violent extremists but also watch those who use words to spark fires,” said Haldenwang, adding that anti-Semitism, hatred of Islam and racism spread online or in political arenas provides the “breeding ground” for violence.Germany has been shaken by a series of far-right killings over the past year, including the slaying of a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the attack on a synagogue in Halle and a deadly mass shooting targeting people with migrant backgrounds in Hanau.“Right-wing extremism and terrorism are currently the biggest threats to democracy in Germany,” Haldenwang told reporters, adding that more than 200 people have been killed by right-wing extremists in the country since 1990.Kalbitz, the AfD leader in Brandenburg, called the intelligence agency’s decision “factually unfounded and completely politically motivated.”Putting The Wing under increased surveillance could strengthen calls for it to be banned. Germany’s top court rejected a bid to outlaw the far-right NPD party in 2017, deeming it too insignificant in part because it had no presence in parliament. Alternative for Germany, by contrast, has seats in all 16 state assemblies and the federal parliament.Intelligence scrutiny of the The Wing could also have consequences for any supporters who are civil servants or state employees. “They will get into trouble” with their superiors in the future because the AfD faction’s aims run counter to the German Constitution they swore to uphold, Haldenwang said.
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The European Central Bank deploying new stimulus measures to cushion the economic pain inflicted by the virus outbreak, but avoided cutting interest rates in a situation where economists say monetary policy can do little more than limit the damage.The central bank for the 19 countries that use the euro decided Thursday to buy up to 120 billion euros ($132 billion) more in bonds this year.The money is newly created and injected into the financial system. It comes on top of purchases worth 20 billion euros a month it is already carrying out, and would be aimed at corporate bonds, which should help keep credit available to companies.The ECB is also providing additional cheap, long-term loans to banks to make sure they have the liquidity they need. And the ECB will temporarily ease some capital requirements for banks to help them keep lending.It’s all aimed at helping businesses get the financing they need and stimulating activity to offset the downturn from all the closings and restrictions due to the virus outbreak.The central bank did not cut interest rates as many analysts had expected. Rates are already low and economists have said deeper cuts might not help much.Thursday’s steps “will do no more than cushion the blow to the economy from the coronavirus,” said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics. “Monetary policy is powerless to prevent a deep downturn and, unlike in the U.S. and China, it has little scope to support the recovery afterwards.”The move comes as the eurozone is forecast to slide into recession and financial markets keep falling over concerns about the virus outbreak’s hit to the economy. Concerns deepened after the U.S. decided to halt travel from 26 European countries.The bank’s policy meeting was held without several members of the 25-seat governing council physically present and participating by remote conferencing. Italian central bank head Ignazio Visco is among them since his country, so far the hardest hit in Europe by the virus outbreak, has restricted movement. The central bank governors of Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are also taking part by remote.Economists are saying that the impact of the virus outbreak is difficult to address with monetary policy, since it first and foremost deals a shock to the supply of goods and services. Monetary policy is better equipped to stimulate demand, not supply, by making credit more widely available.Central bank action is aimed at limiting the damage from knock-on effects of business interruption. More abundant and targeted credit could help businesses get through a period of interruption without going out of business.The Bank of England cut its key benchmark to 0.25% from 0.75% on Wednesday; the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its benchmark by a half-percentage point to 1.0-1.25% on March 3.Meanwhile governments are developing plans for targeted stimulus through tax breaks or labor market assistance programs.Italy is earmarking 25 billion euros ($28 billion) in new spending and Britain said it would make 30 billion pounds ($39 billion) available.The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to ease eligibility requirements for a program in which the government helps pay workers who are put on shorter hours by their companies. That could help companies rebound quickly after the outbreak passes because they will have avoided layoffs and would not need to reassemble a trained workforce.Yet European rules limiting debt and deficits for members of the euro currency may restrict what governments can do. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that the maximum flexibility available in the rules will be applied.The commission has started a longer-term review of the rules themselves, but economist Rosie Colthorpe at Oxford Economics said any changes would not come before 2021. “This leaves the eurozone ill-prepared to deliver a forceful and coordinated fiscal response to the looming coronavirus-related downturn.”“There is a chance that a serious recession would trigger meaningful reform, but for now the onus will remain on the ECB, despite its increasingly depleted arsenal,” Colthorpe said. 
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The World Health Organization Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, with 114 countries confirming cases, while the United States announced a European travel ban and the National Basketball Association said its games are on hold for now.“In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquarters, March 11, 2020, in Geneva.Tedros warned that the worst is yet to come with the WHO “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of COVID-19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries to climb even higher,” he said.Tedros said his organization has “rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” and that countries “can still change the course of this pandemic.”Trump announces new measures U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, declaring “the virus will not have a chance against us,” and announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe to the United States, starting Friday. Travel from the United Kingdom is exempt, as are U.S. citizens, legal residents and their immediate families.Trump also announced financial relief for people and businesses affected by the virus.The U.S. State Department issued updated guidance Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel abroad” because of the coronavirus outbreak.Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies at a House committee hearing on preparedness for and response to the coronavirus outbreak on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2020.There are more than 1,200 confirmed cases in the United States. When there were just 15 cases last month, Trump said that number would soon drop to zero. It has since spread to about 40 of the 50 U.S. states. Thirty-eight people have died.The first confirmed case in Capitol Hill offices was reported Wednesday with a staffer in Senator Maria Cantwell’s office testing positive.“Bottom line, it’s going to get worse,” the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday.Fauci says how much worse depends on the U.S. government’s ability to control the number of travelers coming into the U.S. and local efforts to contain the virus.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $728 million package to fight the virus, much of which will be used to develop a vaccine.Medical staff checks a passenger in a car for the novel coronavirus at the border crossing with Italy in Vrtojba, Slovenia, March 11 , 2020.Europe takes more drastic measures
Some European nations are taking more drastic steps. Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, is under a nationwide lockdown.All museums and schools in Spain are closed. Denmark has also shuttered schools and Britain announced a multibillion-dollar package to boost the country’s health care system and to also help businesses taking an economic hit.Festivals and any kind of event that attracts large crowds and brings people close together have been canceled across much of Europe.Impact on sports players and events
The NBA announced late Wednesday it is suspending its season until further notice after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus.That followed a decision earlier by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to play its popular annual “March Madness” basketball tournaments without fans.As of late Wednesday, there were more than 126,000 coronavirus cases in 114 countries and more than 4,600 deaths.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
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The World Health Organization Wednesday declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, with 114 countries confirming cases, while the United States announced a European travel ban and the National Basketball Association said its games are on hold for now.“In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquarters, March 11, 2020, in Geneva.Tedros warned that the worst is yet to come with the WHO “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of COVID-19 cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries to climb even higher,” he said.Tedros said his organization has “rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” and that countries “can still change the course of this pandemic.”U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, declaring “the virus will not have a chance against us,” and announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe to the United States, starting Friday. Travel from the United Kingdom is exempt, as are U.S. citizens, legal residents and their immediate families.Trump also announced financial relief for people and businesses affected by the virus.The U.S. State Department issued updated guidance Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel abroad” because of the coronavirus outbreak.Dr. Anthony Fauci, left, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies at a House committee hearing on preparedness for and response to the coronavirus outbreak on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 11, 2020.There are more than 1,200 confirmed cases in the United States. When there were just 15 cases last month, Trump said that number would soon drop to zero. It has since spread to about 40 of the 50 U.S. states. Thirty-eight people have died.The first confirmed case in Capitol Hill offices was reported Wednesday with a staffer in Senator Maria Cantwell’s office testing positive.“Bottom line, it’s going to get worse,” the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday.Fauci says how much worse depends on the U.S. government’s ability to control the number of travelers coming into the U.S. and local efforts to contain the virus.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $728 million package to fight the virus, much of which will be used to develop a vaccine.Medical staff checks a passenger in a car for the novel coronavirus at the border crossing with Italy in Vrtojba, Slovenia, March 11 , 2020.Some European nations are taking more drastic steps. Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, is under a nationwide lockdown.All museums and schools in Spain are closed. Denmark has also shuttered schools and Britain announced a multibillion-dollar package to boost the country’s health care system and to also help businesses taking an economic hit.Festivals and any kind of event that attracts large crowds and brings people close together have been canceled across much of Europe.The NBA announced late Wednesday it is suspending its season until further notice after a player for the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus.That followed a decision earlier by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to play its popular annual “March Madness” basketball tournaments without fans.As of late Wednesday, there were more than 126,000 coronavirus cases in 114 countries and more than 4,600 deaths.
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The president of France and the king of Spain paid homage Wednesday to victims of terrorism in a special ceremony prompted by attacks that hit both their countries and changed Europe’s security posture.France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia led a ceremony on Trocadero plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower with survivors of terrorist attacks and families of victims.The European Union chose March 11 as a day of continent-wide commemoration of terrorism victims after the Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004 that killed nearly 200 people and woke Europe up to 21st century threats of Islamic extremism.Macron paid tribute to the victims of a string of attacks in France, starting with shootings in 2012 that killed children at a Jewish school, a rabbi and paratroopers in the Toulouse region.Extremists claiming links to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaida hit France repeatedly in 2015 and 2016. Among their victims: cartoonists at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, shoppers at a kosher market, concert-goers at the Bataclan, diners in Paris cafes, an elderly priest at the altar, holiday revelers on the seaside of Nice, and several police officers.
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has included pro-Kremlin social-media users, Russia’s communications regulator, and an Iranian state body tackling cybercrime on its list of press freedom’s 20 “worst digital predators” that it says represent a “clear danger for freedom of opinion and expression.”The Paris-based media freedom watchdog unveiled the list ahead of the World Day Against Cybercensorship to be marked on March 12.This list, which RSF says is not exhaustive, includes “state offshoots” and government agencies in authoritarian countries. It also covers private-sector companies specializing in targeted cyberespionage that are based in Western countries such as the United States and Britain.
“The authoritarian strongmen behind predatory activity against press freedom are extending their tentacles into the digital world with the help of armies of accomplices, subordinates, and henchmen who are organized and determined digital predators,” RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said in a statement.
“These accomplices sometimes act from or within democratic countries,” Deloire said, adding that “opposition to despotic regimes also means ensuring that the weapons for suppressing journalism are not delivered to them from abroad.”In Russia and Iran, the “Kremlin’s troll army,” Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor, and the Iranian Cyberspace Supreme Council use digital technology to “spy on and harass” journalists and thereby “jeopardize” people’s ability to get news and information, according to RSF.It said pro-Kremlin actors use social media to spread “false” reports and videos, publish personal information, and attack the reputation of journalists.One of their targets includes Finnish investigative journalist Jessikka Aro, who in a recently published book “shed light on the propaganda they spread about those who denounce their activities.”For instance, Russian journalist Igor Yakovenko and the Moscow-based foreign reporters Isabelle Mandraud and Shaun Walker are “often targeted by this troll army,” according to RSF.Meanwhile, Roskomnadzor has “blocked more than 490,000 websites without warning and without respecting legal procedure and has a secret blacklist of banned sites,” the group said.The government agency’s targets have included Ferghana and other news agencies, investigative sites such as Listok and Grani.ru, and political magazines including ej.ru and mbk.news.Roskomnadzor also “blocks platforms and apps that refuse to store their data on servers in Russia or provide the Russian authorities with keys to decrypt messages,” RSF said, citing the example of the encrypted messaging service ProtonMail, which was partially blocked earlier this year.RSF said the Iranian Cyberspace Supreme Council uses “online selective access and control,” and blocks news websites, platforms, and apps such as Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter to enforce state censorship.Created in 2012 and consisting of senior military and political figures, the council “is constructing a firewall using Internet filtering techniques,” the watchdog said.
“Internet shutdowns are increasingly used to contain and suppress waves of street protests, and to restrict the transmission and circulation of independent information regarded as ‘counter-revolutionary’ or ‘subversive’ in nature,” it added.
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The conviction of the only man ever found guilty of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing has been referred for an appeal to Scotland’s High Court, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said on Wednesday.Pam Am flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988 en route from London to New York, an attack that killed 270 people, mostly Americans on their way home for Christmas.In 2001, Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was jailed for life after being found guilty of carrying out the attack. He died in Libya in 2012 after being released three years earlier by Scotland’s government on compassionate grounds following a diagnosis of terminal cancer.Chairman of the Commission Bill Matthews said it was the second time they had reviewed Megrahi’s conviction. “We note that since our last review further information has become available, including within the public domain, which the Commission has now been able to consider and assess,” he said in a statement.”I am satisfied that the matter is now returning to the appropriate forum – the appeal court – to consider fully all of the issues raised in our statement of reasons.”
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Governments around the world are trying to take steps to address the ever-changing outbreak of a new coronavirus, which since December has infected more than 118,000 people and killed about 4,300 in 114 countries.The virus, known officially as COVID-19, first emerged in China, where health officials Wednesday reported 24 new cases.People wait in a queue to get temperature check before entering a bank in Beijing, March 11, 2020.While the increase represents a sustained decline from the height of the outbreak in China, the country where the government puts cities on lockdown to prevent inter-community spread is now dealing with an increase in the number of cases arriving from other nations.That prompted officials in Beijing to order anyone arriving to go into a 14-day quarantine.Italy follows China’s playbook Italy has followed China’s playbook after becoming a secondary center of the outbreak with more than 10,000 reported cases so far and cases in numerous other countries linked to people who traveled from Italy.  Italians were under a second day of a nationwide lockdown Wednesday with people only able to move around for urgent health and work reasons.Officials in the United States are showing increased concern as the number of cases there surpassed 1,000.  Medics transport a patient through heavy rain into an ambulance at Life Care Center of Kirkland, the long-term care facility linked to several confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, in Kirkland, Washington, March 7, 2020.US outbreak pockets
There are pockets of outbreaks in the western state of Washington, where the governor is expected to announce a ban on gatherings of more than 250 people, and across the country in New York where that state’s governor is instituting an isolation zone around a community with more than 100 reported cases.Most people who contract the new coronavirus experience mild or moderate symptoms, but some, mainly older people and those with existing health problems, are at risk for more serious illness.The World Health Organization recommends people wash their hands, avoid touching their face, maintain distance from anyone who is coughing or sneezing, and stay home if they feel ill.Recommendations to avoid large gatherings of people have led to numerous event cancellations around the globe.Police officers wearing masks patrol an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, March 11, 2020.Vatican live-streams mass
Pope Francis gave a live-streamed mass from inside the Vatican on Wednesday, and the Vatican’s representative in East Timor said the pope would not be making an expected trip there later this year.A Premier League match between British football clubs Manchester City and Arsenal set for Wednesday night was postponed after several Arsenal players and staff members went into self-quarantine linked to contact with the owner of another club who tested positive for the virus.Popular Coachella festival canceled
In the United States, organizers of the Coachella music festival moved the April event to October.  And a Sunday debate between Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will go on without anyone in attendance.
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Australia’s High Court opened a two-day hearing Wednesday on Cardinal George Pell’s last-ditch appeal of his convictions on sexually assaulting two teenage choirboys.The 78-year-old Pell was convicted in December 2018 on charges that he molested the boys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick Cathedral in 1996 while serving as archbishop of the Melbourne diocese.  He was sentenced exactly one year ago this month to six years in prison.  Pell’s lawyers went to the High Court after the Victoria Court of Appeals rejected his appeal last August by a vote of 2-1 vote.  Defense attorney Bret Walker is arguing that it was implausible that the alleged assault even happened because it supposedly took place in a busy area of the crowded cathedral, unlike other sexual assault cases.  Walker is also arguing that the Victoria appeals court incorrectly put the burden of proof on Pell to prove his innocence, rather than place it on the prosecution to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.The seven-member High Court could decide to either accept or reject Pell’s appeal, or send it back down to the Victoria Court of Appeals.  Pell is the the highest-ranking Catholic official convicted in connection with the global child sexual abuse scandal that has embroiled the church for three decades.  At the time of his conviction, he had taken a leave of absence as a member of the Vatican’s Council of Cardinals, who serve as Pope Francis’s cabinet and inner circle of advisers.  He had also served as the Vatican’s treasurer and economic minister.  Only one of the alleged victims came forward to tell authorities what happened; the other died in 2014 of a drug overdose having never spoken of the alleged assault. A lawyer for the father of the late choirboy says if the High Court rules in Pell’s favor and allows him “to walk free from jail, our client says he will lose all faith in our legal system.”
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Russian leader Vladimir Putin threw his weight behind proposals to amend Russia’s current constitutional cap on presidential term limits — a move that opens the door to Putin, 67, staying in power far beyond the end of his current and, in theory, final term in 2024.Under the proposed changes, which Putin insisted would need backing by an upcoming nationwide referendum, as well as the approval of Russia’s Constitutional Court, the Russian leader would be eligible to run for two more terms in office, possibly extending his 20-year Kremlin rule through 2036.“The proposal to remove restrictions for any person, including the incumbent president … would be possible, but on one condition: if the Constitutional Court gives an official ruling that such an amendment would not contradict the principles and norms of the constitution,” Putin said in addressing the proposal before lawmakers in the Duma on Tuesday.Putin framed the move as injecting stability into Russia’s uncertain political future — in effect, suggesting that by staying in power, he could lead Russia toward a day when change in power through elections would be possible.”I am certain that a time would come when the supreme presidential power in Russia would not be so personified, will not be tied to a certain single person,” Putin said.“We are done with revolutions in Russia,” he added.A legendary cosmonaut, a new mission?The proposed constitutional reforms were the latest in a series of moves that appear to provide Putin with options as he confronts the end of his fourth and final term in office.Indeed, the announcement came as lawmakers in the Duma debated additional constitutional reforms first proposed by Putin amid a surprise government shakeup last January. Those proposals included a newly empowered parliament, prime minister’s post and Security Council — all measures that suggested Putin was envisioning a possible new role from which to wield influence beyond the end of his presidency.Yet today’s announcement signaled that at least some in the Kremlin had united around a simpler plan: Putin would stay right where he is.The roll out was highly choreographed.First, lawmaker Valentina Tereshkova, a legendary Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space, took to the Duma lectern, to say that lawmakers’ recent constitutional debates had failed to take into account Russians’ true wishes: that Putin remain in power.Moreover, Tereshkova said impending new changes to the constitution afforded the president the right to “reset to zero” the number of terms already served.Next, Vyachaslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, informed journalists that Putin had heard the news and was on his way to the Duma to address the idea.Soon, Putin was before lawmakers agreeing that the “return to zero” option was indeed possible, provided it passed muster during a national vote scheduled for an April 22 referendum and received the subsequent backing of the Constitutional Court.The Duma quickly approved the measure.Opposition replyKremlin critics had few, if any, illusions of the road ahead.“The fact that Putin was never going to leave — we’ve always known. That he didn’t make any clever moves, and instead stupidly just took another term — now that’s a bit of a surprise,” Leonid Volkov, chief strategist of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, wrote in a post to Facebook.“The current constitution guarantees that I can definitely participate in presidential elections, and that Putin definitely cannot,” Navalny said in a tweet, noting the Kremlin had banned him from participating in elections despite rulings to the contrary by the European Court for Human Rights.Как интересно получается.Действующая конституция гарантирует, что я точно могу участвовать в президентских выборах, а Путин – точно не может.На практике же, я выиграл два суда в ЕСПЧ и всё равно не могу.А Путин был у власти 20 лет, но всё равно пойдёт на первый срок.— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 10, 2020″Yet Putin has been in power for 20 years and all the same is headed for his first term,” Navalny said, in taking a swipe at the “return to zero” argument.While members of the opposition pushed for supporters to protest the move, the calls were immediately hamstrung by another crisis: the coronavirus.Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that all public gatherings of more than 5,000 people were banned until at least April 10 over fears of the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Yet government critics were quick to question the timing of the decision, with many noting that tens of thousands had taken to the streets in 2012, when Putin stretched constitutional norms to return to the Kremlin for a third term in office.For the time being, critics were left to take part in smaller protests against Putin’s new power move, with a reported 100 people taking part in rotating single-picket demonstrations in order to not run afoul of Russia’s punitive freedom of assembly laws.Cue the jokes onlineSocial media churned with grim jokes on the news, parodying a week that, in addition to Putin’s announcement and concerns over coronavirus, saw the ruble collapse amid an oil pricing war with Saudi Arabia.“You read the news about the government coup, and in fear you want to hug somebody,” wrote one Facebook user. “Then you remember about coronavirus. And you think, better instead to head to see a therapist. And then you remember about the value of the ruble.”“Due to the quarantine, they’ve forbidden Putin to leave his post,” photojournalist Dave Frenkel jokes in a post on Twitter.Из-за карантина Путину запретят покидать президентский пост— Dave Frenkel (@merr1k) March 10, 2020“Putin said that he’s not against zeroing out his presidential terms,” Russian blogger Ruslan Usachev wrote in another tweet. “Now, all those who were born under President Putin, have a chance to die under President Putin.”Indeed, should Putin remain healthy and retain public support, Russians faced the prospect of Putin remaining in power well into his 80s.Yet the Russian leader said his country’s ultimate goal was to get to a place where “people in power can be changed regularly,” an argument that some political observers suspected was tightly bound to Putin’s own political reign.“I hope that by 2036, (Putin) will somehow convince the population that democracy is better than a dictatorship,” Vladimir Inozemtsev, director of the Center for Post-Industrial Society Studies, in a blog post dripping with sarcasm.“Learning quicker, it seems, is unlikely to happen,” Inozemtsev said.
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Italian streets are empty after the government extends a clampdown across the entire country in a bid to slow Europe’s worst outbreak of the coronavirus. Elsewhere, Lebanon records its first casualty from the virus while guests at a Canary Islands hotel celebrate the end of a two-week lockdown. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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As thousands of migrants continue to mass on the Turkey-Greece border, there were few signs of a breakthrough in emergency talks between Turkey and the European Union Monday.  Meanwhile five EU member states, Germany, Finland, France, Luxembourg and Portugal, agreed to take in unaccompanied migrant children who are stuck in Greece, though the numbers are unclear.Ankara encouraged migrants to head to the Greek border last week, accusing the EU of failing to keep to the promises it made in a 2016 deal struck at the height of the European refugee crisis. Turkey is hosting around 4 million migrants, many of them escaping the war in Syria. However, critics say most of those trying to cross into Greece are not from Syria and accuse Turkey of weaponizing migrants to blackmail Europe.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A child walks next to tents in a migrant camp set up near the Turkish-Greek border in Pazarkule, Edirne region, Turkey, March 10, 2020.For migrants stuck on the border, including thousands of children, the misery continues. Many are sleeping in the open or in makeshift camps. Greece has stepped up security across the land and sea borders and anyone caught trying to breach the frontier is turned back.  A few do manage to get through and are quickly arrested. It’s not yet clear if they will be returned to Turkey or be allowed to remain on Greek soil, after Athens announced it will not accept any asylum applications for at least the next month.    Back home, Turkey’s president continues to ramp up the rhetoric for his domestic audience.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, in Brussels, Belgium, March 9, 2020.“Aren’t women and their children suffering the most among the refugees swarming to land and sea borders, hoping to go to Europe?” President Erdogan told supporters at a rally Sunday in Istanbul. “And what is the West doing about this? Is the West’s heart breaking over all of this? No. Is it raising its voice? No.”Meanwhile the United Nations has voiced concern over the vulnerability of the migrant population to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. A team from the U.N. refugee agency is visiting camps along the Greek border to advise on hygiene and transmission prevention.
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As thousands of migrants continue to mass on the Turkey-Greece border, there were few signs of a breakthrough in emergency talks between Ankara and Brussels Monday. Turkey is hosting around four million migrants, many of them escaping the war in Syria. But critics say accuse Turkey of weaponizing the migrants to blackmail Europe. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The United States has offered to sell Turkey its Patriot missile defense system if Ankara promises not to operate a rival Russian system, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, in what he called a significant softening in Washington’s position.Two Turkish officials told Reuters that Turkey was evaluating the U.S. offer but that Ankara had not changed its plans for the Russian S-400 systems, which it has said it will start to activate next month.Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, March 2, 2020.In Washington, the Pentagon said that U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper had not changed his position on the issue, which was: “Turkey is not going to receive a Patriot battery unless it returns the S-400.”NATO allies Turkey and the United States have been at odds over Ankara’s purchase last year of the S-400s, which Washington says are incompatible with the alliance’s defense systems.Turkey asks for PatriotsAfter heavy fighting in northwestern Syria’s Idlib region this year Turkey asked Washington to deploy Patriots along its border with Syria for protection but the United States said Turkey cannot have both the S-400s and the Patriots.Speaking to reporters on his return flight from Brussels, Erdogan said Ankara had told Washington to deploy Patriot systems to Turkey and that it was ready to purchase the systems from the United States as well.”We made this offer to the United States on the Patriot: If you are going to give us Patriots, then do it. We can also buy Patriots from you,” he said.”They also softened significantly on this S-400 issue. They are now at the point of ‘promise us you won’t make the S-400s operational’,” Erdogan added.FILE – First parts of a Russian S-400 missile defense system are unloaded from a Russian plane near Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019.U.S. offers supportPrevious talks between Turkey and the United States on the purchase of the Patriots have collapsed over a host of issues, from the S-400s to Ankara’s dissatisfaction with Washington’s terms. Turkey has said it will only agree to an offer if it includes technology transfer and joint production terms.While ties between Ankara and Washington have been strained, the United States has offered support for its ally as it battles to stop Russia-backed Syrian government advances in Idlib. But U.S. officials said on Tuesday Ankara had to clarify its position on the S-400s for their security ties to advance.U.S. special representative for Syria James Jeffrey and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield told reporters on a conference call from Brussels that Washington was discussing with NATO what support it can offer Turkey militarily.Jeffrey also said they had considered possible responses should Russia and the Syrian government break a ceasefire in Idlib, officials said.NATO help for TurkeyHe suggested other NATO states could individually or as an alliance provide military support to help Turkey. But he ruled out sending ground troops and said there still needed to be a resolution to the S-400 issue for the security relationship to move forward.”You can forget ground troops. Turkey has demonstrated that it and its opposition forces are more than capable of holding ground on their own,” Jeffrey said. “The issue is the situation in the air and it’s what we are looking at,” he said.Washington did not believe that Russia and Syrian had any interest in a permanent ceasefire in Idlib, he said.”They are out to get a military victory in Syria and our goal is to make it difficult for them to do that,” Jeffrey said.”Our goal is … to make them think twice. If they ignore our warnings and preparations and move forward, then we will react as rapidly as possible in consultation with our NATO and European allies on what the package of sanctions and other reactions will be.”Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he addresses his ruling party members, in Ankara, Turkey, March 2, 2020.Position “Unchanged”While Erdogan has frequently referred to the S-400 purchase as a “done deal” and said Turkey will not turn back from it, he did not repeat that stance in his comments on Tuesday. Turkish officials, however, said Turkey’s position remained unchanged.”The United States has once again brought up the Patriot offer. The United States’ previous strong stance isn’t the case anymore. They are approaching Turkey more empathetically now,” a senior official said.”The core condition is that the S-400s are not activated, or in other words that they are not unboxed. This offer is being evaluated, but there is no change of stance on the S-400s,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity said.A separate Turkish official told Reuters the latest offer byWashington also include Turkey’s return to the F-35 stealth fighter jet program, which Turkey was involved in both as manufacturer of plane parts and customer for the jets.After Ankara bought the S-400s, Washington suspended its involvement in the program and threatened sanctions.”There is a U.S. offer for Patriots, but this offer includes the F-35s,” the Turkish official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Air defense systems can be purchased, but Turkey’s conditions are clear: there has to be issues like the know-how transfer and joint production.”Turkey has said it plans to activate the S-400s it received from Russia in April. The United States has warned that such a move will trigger U.S. sanctions, though Ankara has repeatedly said good ties between Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump may be able to avert this.
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